The chemical compound nitric oxide is a gas with chemical formula NO. NO is one of the few gaseous signaling molecules known in biological systems, and plays an important role in controlling various biological events. For example, the endothelium uses NO to signal surrounding smooth muscle in the walls of arterioles to relax, resulting in vasodilation and increased blood flow to hypoxic tissues. NO is also involved in regulating smooth muscle proliferation, platelet function, neurotransmission, and plays a role in host defense. Although nitric oxide is highly reactive and has a lifetime of a few seconds, it can both diffuse freely across membranes and bind to many molecular targets. These attributes make NO an ideal signaling molecule capable of controlling biological events between adjacent cells and within cells.
NO is a free radical gas, which makes it reactive and unstable, thus NO is short lived in vivo, having a half life of 3-5 seconds under physiologic conditions. In the presence of oxygen, NO can combine with thiols to generate a biologically important class of stable NO adducts called S-nitrosothiols (SNO's). This stable pool of NO has been postulated to act as a source of bioactive NO and as such appears to be critically important in health and disease, given the centrality of NO in cellular homeostasis (Stamler et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 89:7674-7677 (1992)). Protein SNO's play broad roles in cardiovascular, respiratory, metabolic, gastrointestinal, immune and central nervous system function (Foster et al., 2003, Trends in Molecular Medicine Volume 9, Issue 4, April 2003, pages 160-168). One of the most studied SNO's in biological systems is S-nitrosoglutathione (GSNO) (Gaston et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 90:10957-10961 (1993)), an emerging key regulator in NO signaling since it is an efficient trans-nitrosating agent and appears to maintain an equilibrium with other S-nitrosated proteins (Liu et al., 2001) within cells. Given this pivotal position in the NO-SNO continuum, GSNO provides a therapeutically promising target to consider when NO modulation is pharmacologically warranted.
In light of this understanding of GSNO as a key regulator of NO homeostasis and cellular SNO levels, studies have focused on examining endogenous production of GSNO and SNO proteins, which occurs downstream from the production of the NO radical by the nitric oxide synthetase (NOS) enzymes. More recently there has been an increasing understanding of enzymatic catabolism of GSNO which has an important role in governing available concentrations of GSNO and consequently available NO and SNO's.
Central to this understanding of GSNO catabolism, researchers have recently identified a highly conserved S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR) (Jensen et al., Biochem J., 331:659-668 (1998); Liu et al., Nature, 410:490-494 (2001)). GSNOR is also known as glutathione-dependent formaldehyde dehydrogenase (GS-FDH), alcohol dehydrogenase 3 (ADH-3) (Uotila and Koivusalo, Coenzymes and Cofactors., D. Dolphin, ed. pp. 517-551 (New York, John Wiley & Sons, 1989)), and alcohol dehydrogenase 5 (ADH-5). Importantly GSNOR shows greater activity toward GSNO than other substrates (Jensen et al., 1998; Liu et al., 2001) and appears to mediate important protein and peptide denitrosating activity in bacteria, plants, and animals. GSNOR appears to be the major GSNO-metabolizing enzyme in eukaryotes (Liu et al., 2001). Thus, GSNO can accumulate in biological compartments where GSNOR activity is low or absent (e.g. airway lining fluid) (Gaston et al., 1993).
Yeast deficient in GSNOR accumulate S-nitrosylated proteins which are not substrates of the enzyme, which is strongly suggestive that GSNO exists in equilibrium with SNO-proteins (Liu et al., 2001). Precise enzymatic control over ambient levels of GSNO and thus SNO-proteins raises the possibility that GSNO/GSNOR may play roles across a host of physiological and pathological functions including protection against nitrosative stress wherein NO is produced in excess of physiologic needs. Indeed, GSNO specifically has been implicated in physiologic processes ranging from the drive to breathe (Lipton et al., Nature, 413:171-174 (2001)) to regulation of the cystic fibrosis transmembrane regulator (Zaman et al., Biochem Biophys Res Commun, 284:65-70 (2001), to regulation of vascular tone, thrombosis and platelet function (de Belder et al., Cardiovasc Res. 1994 May; 28(5):691-4. (1994); Z. Kaposzta, A et al., Circulation; 106(24): 3057-3062, 2002) as well as host defense (de Jesus-Berrios et al., Curr. Biol., 13:1963-1968 (2003)). Other studies have found that GSNOR protects yeast cells against nitrosative stress both in vitro (Liu et al., 2001) and in vivo (de Jesus-Berrios et al., 2003).
Collectively data suggest GSNOR as a primary physiological ligand for the enzyme S-nitrosoglutathione reductase (GSNOR), which catabolizes GSNO and consequently reduces available SNO's and NO in biological systems (Liu et al., 2001), (Liu et al., Cell, (2004), 116(4), 617-628), and (Que et al., Science, 2005, 308, (5728):1618-1621). As such, this enzyme plays a central role in regulating local and systemic bioactive NO. Since perturbations in NO bioavailability has been linked to the pathogenesis of numerous disease states, including hypertension, atherosclerosis, thrombosis, asthma, gastrointestinal disorders, inflammation and cancer, agents that regulate GSNOR activity are candidate therapeutic agents for treating diseases associated with nitric oxide imbalance.
Currently, there is a great need in the art for diagnostics, prophylaxis, ameliorations, and treatments for medical conditions relating to increased NO synthesis and/or increased NO bioactivity. In addition, there is a significant need for novel compounds, compositions and methods for preventing, ameliorating, or reversing other NO-associated disorders. The present invention satisfies these needs.